Palesa Vuyolwethu Tshandu

Palesa Vuyolwethu Tshandu is the outgoing Curator of the Johannesburg Hub for 2020/2021. She is also a member of the Equity and Inclusion Steering Committee of the Global Shapers Community. She currently works as an Analyst in the Office of the Group Chief Executive at a South African state-owned enterprise.  Prior to joining the world of research and analysis, she was a business writer and columnist for BusinessLive, writing for publications such as the Business Times (Sunday Times), Business Day and Financial Mail. Prior to that, as an intern at Bloomberg News where she covered the 25th African Union Summit, and broke the news of court interdict, warranting arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, after he was indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on war-crimes and genocide charges.

Her work has been cited in various publications such as the research paper by the National Planning Committee for the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation for the Republic of South Africa and cited by former President Thabo Mbeki on his “Observations on HIV and Mortality in South Africa.” Tshandu was also a resident business commentator for some of the biggest radio shows in South Africa. She is also one of the first two recipients of the Bloomberg Scholarship in Africa for financial journalism.

Tshandu is also the co-founder of start-up social venture Mind Over Matter, a mobile psychology unit that aims to offer psycho-social support to underserved communities, as a means of bridging the gap in terms of access to these services. 

Tshandu holds a Masters in Management in the field of Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation, BA (Hons) in Journalism and Media Studies and a BA in International Relations and Media Studies from the University of the Witwatersand.